Page 54 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

THE STRONG START 45

7. Look into the past. Looking into the past is another way people
who see themselves as leaders attempt to justify their stewardship.
But I am not talking about looking into the past in the conventional

sense. The key here is to define the past to reveal change.
-

Leaders understand change. One reason they are leaders is that they
make it their business to identify changes in progress.
-

If you can do that consistently, the world needs you—because
people like you can harness history, control it just enough not to get
run over by it. With luck, people like you can put inevitable change
and evolution to good use.
A good leader’s self-image is as someone who has the big picture,
a historical perspective—someone who can command a worldview,
size things up before they become a problem, take action in advance
of need (what some businesspeople call “being proactive”). Corpo-
rate CEOs love to see themselves as statesmen, powers not only in
their own corporate backyards, but real players on the world stage.
I have written many a speech for many a corporate chief that sweeps

through fifty or sixty years in just a few seconds—giving the unmis-
takable message to audiences that here is a person who has his act
together. For example:

In 1970, the Japanese had just 2 percent of the worldwide tele-
communications business. But by 1995, Koreans and Japanese
commanded 42 percent of the telecommunications business
around the world.
If this trend continues, we can expect that by the year 2015
the Koreans will dominate—and we might not even be in the
telecommunications business.
That to me is a bad dream that doesn’t have to come true. And
that’s why I’m here today—to send a wake-up call to every sena-